How I Met Your Father
by JJ.Fern
Summary: It wasn't easy for Amelia to try to explain to her daughter that her parents didn't meet in the most conventional manner. But then, Amelia and "T.J." aren't exactly the most conventional parents. Joker/OC


**Hello everybody, I decided to be brave and post up this piece of fluff I've decided to play with. It's my first posted story, any reviews would likely be helpful. I have to thank a lovely friend that always helps me out with my ideas via AIM, and I did not get to show this to her before daring to post, so i won't thank her by name now so if this is terrible, I won't embarass her! And now, with no more self-conscious crap, please be my guest, read on!  
JJ Fern**

"You want to know how I met your father?" I repeat my five year old daughter's words.

"YEAH!" she exclaims, obviously reaching the end of her patience. "Tell… me.. how.. you… met.. DADDY!" she says it very slowly, like she's the mom and I'm the dumb kid that isn't getting it.

I raise an eyebrow at the little fire cracker standing in front of me and she giggles and rolls her eyes. That kid isn't afraid of me, she isn't even afraid of her father. She puts her hands on her hips and looks at me and begins to tap her foot. I'm looking down at a pissed off miniature me, perhaps a little more unkempt than I am but still a bit of a clone. Her wavy brown hair, which should be resting nicely on her shoulders is knotty and all over the place, and she's got a smudge of dirt on her cheek. She's scrunching up her slightly upturned nose, splashed with freckles, and her lips, full with a big bottom lip, are starting to form into a pout. She didn't get T.J.'s height either, I can tell she's going to be a shrimp like me. But those eyes, damnit, those eyes are all his, wide and that same chocolatey brown that grows dark when she's angry, and she even rolls them up all the time, because she wants to be "just like daddy." I love the man but I sure hope she's not just like daddy.

"How I met your father.." I say quietly. This is the last story I want to tell her. Well, one of them, I probably don't want to tell her about the time _T.J.,_ as I so affectionately call him, lit a stack of cash and a Chinese accountant on fire, or how we were able to afford all her nice toys. "Why don't you go ask him, he tells that story really well!"

"Be_cauuusee_," she whines, "he's playing with those wires and clocks again, and he said not to bother him!"

Clocks and wires? Great. I guess it's going to be an _explosive_ weekend. So much for moving to Los Angeles to get away from it all. He pretty much just brought it here with him.

"Okay, fine, go get in bed and I will come in and tell you the story, all right Caroline? But you have to brush your teeth and wash your face first, or no story." I tell her.

"Daddy said I don't have to brush my teeth before I go to bed,"

"Well Daddy's teeth are yellow and are probably all going to fall out in a couple of years, do you want that to happen to you?" I answer her. Her hands fly up to her mouth and she runs off towards the bathroom to make sure she does not share her father's dental fate.

I walk down the hallway of our cozy little house, one bedroom for us, one bedroom for Caroline, and an "office" for T.J. to get his "work" done. I tread lightly on the wooden floors, trying to sneak up on him, but he hears me as I step into the doorway. He looks up from what he's doing, his face scrunched up in concentration, and gives a little wave before looking back down at his contraptions.

"What are you doing?" I ask him.

"Do you really _want _to know?" he responds, knowing me all too well. He laughs when I shake my head no. "Sooo Caroline wants to know _how_ we _met-uh_? Just, uh, just make something up."

"I don't know if I can, nothing could do it justice," I chuckle, "Are you sure you don't want to take a break and tell her?"

"As you can prob-ab-bly see, my dearest Amelia," he says my name, drawing it out so it sounds more like Uh-MEE-LEE-UHHHH "well… I'm _busy_," his voice goes deep and serious and I can see that I need to leave him alone now. But when have I ever backed down to him? I still that same eyebrow at him that I tried on Caroline, and unlike our daughter, the eyebrow does tend to make him at least a little nervous, and he compromises a bit. "I'll try to listen in once I'm done,"

"Very well," I say shortly. But he gives me a goofy exaggerated grin, of course it takes up half his face thanks to the lovely grin extenders that I still don't know how he got. I've known this man for over five years now and he still keeps me entertained with various different stories of how he got his damn scars. I don't think he remembers how he got them. Hell, we're not even sure how old he is.

I smile despite myself, won over as usual, and shake my head as I leave him alone to his plots to destroy the world, and head into Caroline's room. She's got the lights off, except for the tiny twinkle lights I've hung across her ceiling, softly glowing against the pink walls that she insisted on. She's gotten into her bed, covers up to her chin almost, and her eyes brighten when I enter the room.

"Okay I'm ready Mom," she says, and sits up a bit against a pillow. I sit down in the rocking chair we've had in her room since she was a baby, and take a second to think of what the hell I'm going to tell her, and then finally decide that the truth is all I've got. So with a deep breath, here we go, one two three.

"Once upon a time, your grandma made your mom go to a job interview…"


End file.
